News Archive

London, 18th June 2001

SOUTH BANK UNIVERSITY CASE STUDY

Finsoft Ltd

A business development project supervised by South Bank University resulted in new products, more clients and a £500,000 sales increase for a computer software firm.

Finsoft Ltd, specialists in trading and risk management computer software used in the investment banking and betting industries, employed Reza Mirkhani to help create one of the investment banking industry's first on-line trading software products.

Reza was employed at Finsoft's headquarters in Hatton Garden, London, on the Government-funded Teaching Company Scheme, which enables graduates to work on business-related projects under the supervision of university academics.

Over the life of the two-year project Finsoft's turnover more than doubled and its staff roll soared from seven to 70 (and now stands at 90). Reza's work directly led to a £500,000 increase in sales.

Predrag Popovic, managing director of Finsoft, said: "We had been working on a generic, Web-based credit and market risk management software which would allow investment banks to manage their exposure to either their clients or to movements in the market.

"We asked Reza to learn about the industry, investigate what our competitors were doing, develop ideas and prototypes and help us create a product that we could sell."

Reza's research revealed that the investment banking sector wanted risk management on the Web, but only after it had the software that would make securities trading on the Internet possible. Finsoft's original ideas were re-defined to meet this market need.

Mr Popovic said: "Reza's project was very successful in that it created a number of new opportunities for us. It clarified our whole thinking and allowed us to re-define and expand our product offering, find new clients and extend the business with existing clients. To top it all, partly due to the success of this effort, we recently entered into final stage negotiations with a large European investment bank over creation of a joint venture which would exploit this new product.

"We think very highly of Reza and the work he did for us. Access to the academics brains and the research facilities at South Bank was also extremely useful. We were able to broaden our horizons and benchmark our industry knowledge against theirs."

Reza was invited to stay on at Finsoft, where he is now a senior analyst programmer.

The company's link with South Bank is to be extended from summer 2001, with the appointment of three new Teaching Company Scheme associates who will develop web-based corporate bond trading software.